Dendra was shocked.
"Iron Defense?! That's not a move a Charcadet at this stage should be able to learn… Wait—ever since we first met, this Charcadet's been wearing armor."
"Don't tell me it used that armor to learn Iron Defense?!"
As she analyzed it, she also ordered her Tauros to slam right into Charcadet!
"Drill Run!"
Charcadet was a Fire-type, and it feared Ground-type attacks. It was a weak Pokémon to begin with.
Even if it had learned all kinds of unreasonable, beyond-common-sense techniques, that didn't change the fact that it was still a fragile existence.
So its stamina could bottom out very easily!
Dendra remembered Tulip's tutoring. She'd brought in a Tauros that knew Ground- and Rock-type moves to break into the battlefield. Sure, losing STAB would cut the move's power significantly, but against a weak Pokémon like Charcadet, it should be enough!
After sealing off the opponent's powerful flames and that "Sunlight Spear," the rest of its moves didn't seem threatening!
And Dendra still remembered her first battle with Hikaru.
Water versus Fire—who was strong and who was weak seemed like an obvious, one-glance kind of thing. Yet in the end, she—the one using Water—had been beaten by the one using Fire.
Maybe, aside from Steel and Fighting… this new Elite Four member was also extremely good at "fire."
Dendra: "That Charcadet also knows Flash—it can lower accuracy—so I can't let it start flickering!"
"Mooh!"
The Blaze Breed Tauros's tail spun like the fuse of a dynamite bundle. Its horns burned scorching red, radiating the same searing heat as Charcadet—yet wrapped in Ground-type ramming energy as it charged in one breath to Charcadet's face!
This Blaze Breed had undergone a certain degree of "special training" in Speed!
Drill Run was here!
Like a steel drill, it spun its body as it crashed into the target—easy to land a critical hit!
A Ground-type move was doubly effective against Fire!
"This move is brutal—should I say that?" Hikaru rolled his wrist and focused his breath, gathering his will.
There was no need to dodge.
Because through rigorous training, Charcadet had already drawn out Psychic energy. This was the moment to let that move bloom in brilliance!
A fierce radiance flared over Charcadet's fists! Psychic-type energy—pure as light—flooded the arena!
Invisible waves of thought condensed into tangible force, wrapping around both fists as Charcadet collided head-on with the Drill Run of Tauros (Blaze Breed)!
"Psyshock!"
It materialized mysterious psychic waves to strike the opponent—calculating damage using the target's Defense instead of its Special Defense, dealing physical damage!
It was the first time this move had been used. And because Tauros's physical Defense was far higher than its Special Defense, Psyshock's debut didn't look overwhelmingly explosive at first glance.
However, Psychic was doubly effective against all three Paldean Tauros breeds!
The dazzling "Sun Punch" blasted Tauros away, while Charcadet itself was hammered by Drill Run's shockwave and tumbled across the ground several times!
"Both moves landed—and both were super effective!"
"That Tauros isn't weak. But my Charcadet is stronger!"
Hikaru watched the battlefield. Charcadet hauled itself up after taking the hit as if it were nothing, while Tauros didn't look so good anymore—it was already starting to pant.
Yes, Charcadet was a weak Pokémon, but as long as its growth kept rising, even a weak Pokémon could unleash astonishing power!
And that sight sent the surrounding crowd into cheers!
"That little matador is insane! That Charcadet has fought through round after round and it can still reach this level?!"
"A trainee knight, yet fiercer than an enraged bull—now that's a true matador!"
"Even a Blaze Breed Tauros that's violent like explosives can't beat it… That's unbelievable!"
"Beautiful and noble knight—hey! Keep it up!"
"But the bull is fighting hard too! If you can do it, defeat that brave, fearless bullfighting knight and show your power! A true clash between the bull king and the champion matador—this is the moment!"
The stands were loud and chaotic. Dendra's pressure spiked. Staring at the armored knight that had stood up again, Ms. Dendra couldn't help but do two more squats.
A duel to the death…?
Bullfighting was regarded as the embodiment of wild, unrestrained strength—powerful bodies, exquisite technique, an adventurous spirit, and a will of steel… Combined, that was bullfighting.
But in truth, modern bullfighting wasn't all that different from a restricted-format Pokémon battle.
Dendra: "This is the finals—Tauros, bring out your maximum power!"
"Use Bulk Up!"
It tensed its muscles with full strength, raising its Attack and Defense!
(A commonly used unofficial translation was "Gigantification" or "Physique Reinforcement!")
And at that instant—
The warhammer that had shattered countless foes, and the battle-armor that had earned endless merits, both began to glow.
Charcadet realized something. It stared at its armor and hammer in disbelief.
The light was swelling—this was the trumpet call of evolution!
Hikaru: "The battered armor Don Quixote wore when he set out… in the end became the armor of one who earned countless merits."
"And that hammer—breaking enemies, charging toward the demon king—was fused into it as well."
"In the end, we still didn't reach the moment of forging 'Eternal' and 'Gold'… I even thought, maybe we'd unlock a special stance."
"But for you—evolving into Armarouge as the legendary warrior—this evolution completes your wish, and completes your life as a knight."
"Isn't that right?"
"And that promise I made—to teach you forging, to let you personally craft the Auspicious Armor to celebrate… it's already been fulfilled in another form."
"Along the way—the battles, the trials—what you lacked was the 'forging' of the spirit!"
"Celebrate! The linking of the fire succeeded! In this swirling vortex of soul-light, the people's cheers and congratulations are melting into your armor— and the strongest knight who commands scarlet flames is about to be born!"
In that intense brilliance, a towering sun-knight seized the bull's horns as it charged in—
Then, with tremendous strength, twisted Tauros down to the ground!
The knight wore golden armor. Its faceplate was like charcoal, and the plume of its helmet had been replaced by flame.
Its shoulder armor was massive—tough and heavy like cannons.
They said it symbolized bronze cannons captured from a conquered nation, melted down and recast as memorial trophies.
And because they had become armor, they now carried cannon-like strength!
Reinforced by Psychic power and flame, the armored plate that covered the knight's body glittered with a blinding golden radiance.
A red V-shaped bloodmark slashed across it—an emblem, in the old tales, of an ancient king from some region granting a golden shield and armor to proclaim a warrior's valor!
After the first warrior—those mighty souls who inherited the First Flame…
At some point, they began to gather of their own accord.
Becoming the incarnation that guards the flame!
"Evolution—Armarouge!"
The Auspicious Armor meant as a prize was not obtained by Charcadet—because it had never needed merits granted from outside.
What shocked Hikaru even more was—
This Armarouge's build was unexpectedly huge.
This Pokémon was called a legendary warrior, yet it excelled at long-range combat. Its average height was only around 1.5 meters… but Hikaru's Armarouge stood over 2 meters tall!
How imposing—how magnificent!
A true scarlet grand knight!
"By eye, it's around 2.2 to 2.4 meters—already beyond the maximum height for typical Armarouge!"
"So it became an avatar of the Lord of Cinder…"
Just like Falinks had said—Charcadet really had become the biggest, baddest, most WAAAAGH of its kind!
"It can suppress Tauros?!"
"It evolved—how is that possible?! Was that legend real?!"
Dendra stared in shock at the "Charcadet" that had changed its stance, thinking of an old legend about this species.
They called it a legend, but it wasn't as if nobody owned Armarouge.
It was just that very few people had ever witnessed the moment of evolution itself.
And to many of the academy's students, the story of Armarouge and Ceruledge was the real, honest-to-goodness "Legend of the Warrior"!
It was even recorded in the story The Unchanging Bond!
Tulip's eyes gradually lit up as she murmured from the stands, "In legend, when Charcadet comes into contact with ancient armor that has earned countless merits, it will take on a different evolved form."
"In that story…"
As a Gym Leader, Tulip had naturally read that legend of Charcadet. And similar books were cataloged in the academy library as well.
"Charcadet's Adventure."
"A gentle, legendary Charcadet… got into a fight with a rather vicious Gengar."
"...Don't look down on Charcadet, the Tiny Ember Pokémon—sure it's small, but it's a righteous hero. Gengar is always scaring everyone and causing trouble, so Charcadet is going to settle it in a decisive duel!"
Tulip's voice started to affect the spectators around her. Watching the thrilling transformation on the field, they raised their hands, cheered, and pointed excitedly.
Someone—no one knew who—spoke first, loudly recounting the story from the academy's collection!
"I've read that book! The legend of Charcadet!"
Then some aristocratic descendants and people from famous lineages joined in, narrating the same story from the stands.
"Heya, heya—go, go! But little Charcadet gets tied up by Gengar's long tongue!"
"It's a razor-thin, life-or-death crisis!"
The voices carried all the way to the VIP seats—noisy, lively, jubilant.
They were so excited by the evolutionary light they could hardly contain themselves.
And as it happened, the principal, Harrington, had also read that book.
He glanced at the Auspicious Armor beside him and unconsciously murmured along:
"Just as Charcadet's consciousness began to fade while it was bound…"
"A voice came—no one knew whose!"
The stadium's chatter surged like a tsunami, filling the arena with celebratory roars!
Everyone, one after another, retold the strange and wondrous legend:
"That unknown voice spoke!"
"'I can see two different futures within you!'"
"'Choose one of these two armors—transform, then go defeat Gengar!'"
"And then something magical happened!"
"Two sets of armor really appeared before Charcadet!"
So what happened next?
The cheers had already risen and fallen in waves. Some said the legendary Charcadet evolved into the legendary warrior Armarouge and crushed Gengar. Others said it evolved into Ceruledge, the shadowed swordsman of flame, who cleaved Gengar's body in a single strike and sent it fleeing in panic!
And the armor's name was—
"Of course it was the Auspicious Armor!"
"And right there on the battlefield… the form that Charcadet evolved into is—"
"There's no doubt! The legendary warrior—Armarouge! The Fire Warrior Pokémon! That size is clearly wrong—way too different from the Armarouge I've seen before!"
Dendra felt her heart leap into her throat. Sweat poured down her back as she roared:
"Tauros, use Close Combat!"
Abandoning defense, converting maximum force into offense—a Fighting-type combat art! Different Pokémon fought in wildly different ways when using it!
The enraged bull stomped the earth and charged in!
And inside Dendra's chest, an incomparable thrill ignited.
For some reason—
As the stadium celebrated, Charcadet evolved without any external power, relying on its own strength alone…
Just like the ancient fairy tale Charcadet's Adventure described, wasn't it?!
"That strange voice must be Charcadet's Trainer—or the legendary merchant or tamer!"
"Armor filled with celebratory feelings… armor born from itself… which means…"
"You—could you be the legendary Charcadet?!"
Armarouge listened to Dendra's shout and clenched its hand.
The legendary Charcadet?
That… it didn't know!
But it was advancing toward legend!
The scarlet knight slammed a fist into the ground!
A fierce radiance made the earth tremble. An invisible power split outward like a fissure across the entire arena, sending flashes of light scattering!
Terrain Move: Psychic Terrain!
Pokémon on the ground would not be hit by priority moves. Psychic-type moves were powered up!
Then Armarouge surged forward, seized the struggling raging bull, and pinned it down!
The cannon-like pauldrons on its shoulders shifted like a transformation, sliding down to the outside of its forearms—making it look as if Armarouge had gained a pair of enormous golden gauntlets!
A violent Psychic force poured into the horns, erupting at the moment the two Pokémon strained against each other—
A gigantic pillar of light blasted straight into the sky!
"Psychic Terrain, and then… a new technique."
The method of release was a little strange, but the result represented by that pillar of light would not change.
"Expanding Force!"
Armarouge began, with a single initiating "dance"!
Raging flames steamed the rainwater away, white smoke rolling off Armarouge's body—and in that same moment, something bright seemed to appear as well: a vivid rainbow.
After rain comes clear skies, and rainbow-light traced the horizon!
A faint blue-green halo of flame appeared around Armarouge—those weren't flames that originally belonged to it!
"Blue-green flames—erupting beneath a rainbow?!"
Even Hikaru stared at the back of his scarlet grand knight and fell into a brief, silent daze… until, at last, the knight wrapped in raging fire and laden with merit finally revealed what it had learned.
The fire on its body rose and rose, and that blue-green flame made the original crimson blaze look strangely brilliant, almost dazzling!
[Armarouge learned "Armor Cannon"!] (Bulbapedia)
[Armarouge learned "Scorching Sands"!]
[Armarouge learned "Psychic Terrain"!]
[Armarouge learned "Expanding Force"!] (pokemondb.net)
[Armarouge learned "Calm Mind," "Ally Switch," "Incinerate"!] (pokemondb.net)
[...]
[Armarouge learned "Sacred Fire"!]
"Guren!" The pale blue flames on Armarouge's body burned hotter and hotter!
Setting aside its signature technique—turning shoulder armor into cannons to unleash Armor Cannon—and that powerful Ground-type coverage move Scorching Sands that whipped up a scorching sandstorm…
Once Armarouge's Psychic power fully awakened, another technique—beyond the Psychic Terrain that blanketed the arena—had erupted from within it.
The move that had triggered the sky-piercing pillar of light earlier was Expanding Force!
And when the final move appeared, it all became clear—
Entei's Sacred Fire training had been enormously effective!
The flames and light finally drew inward. Tauros collapsed to the ground, losing the ability to battle. On the field, only Armarouge remained—still standing tall, wrapped in Psychic light, majestic and imposing.
Beneath a sky where sun and rain intermingled, the scarlet grand knight mastered a legendary flame.
And while Sacred Fire—being physical—wasn't ideal damage-wise for an Armarouge that specialized in special attacks…
The meaning of Sacred Fire wasn't simple at all!
That was Ho-Oh's flame—Ho-Oh's power.
Just by taking on a trace of it, fire could gain the properties of life itself!
And the ash left behind after it burned would naturally become a precious legendary substance—Sacred Ash!
"The effect of Sacred Ash is simple, brutal, and absurdly powerful."
"It fully restores the HP of all fainted Pokémon, and also cures all status conditions of all Pokémon on the party."
"And Sacred Ash is the only item that you use on a single Pokémon, yet it can take effect on multiple Pokémon."
Unlike ordinary ash, Sacred Ash was actually white—almost like salt.
The white ash of a fire burned down to nothing, and the scarlet knight born from charcoal… created a faint visual echo between them.
Sacred Fire was a move only Fire-type Pokémon under Ho-Oh could use, symbolizing a power blessed and acknowledged by Ho-Oh.
It attacked by searing the opponent with mysterious flames, sometimes leaving them burned. And if the target was frozen, then regardless of whether the move hit, so long as it was used successfully, it would thaw them!
It was a divine flame that brought life and rebirth—sometimes even carrying a "purifying" effect.
Its color could be rainbow-like, interwoven with red, orange, blue, and violet; sometimes it shifted into blue-white… or even a mysterious purple fire!
And in the card game, Sacred Fire's power also gained a trait called "Immortal Flame."
"Once you master Sacred Fire, you've basically gained the right to use Sacred Ash. Is Entei so hard to take down because it can keep producing Sacred Ash to heal itself?"
"But either way—now you can do it too. That's basically cheating."
Sacred Fire didn't need to be used for damage output.
As long as it could burn itself and produce Sacred Ash, that was enough, wasn't it?
No matter how many times the knight was beaten to the brink, so long as it flared up at death's door and burned—full HP revival, back onto the battlefield!
What's more, while burning itself, it could even deliberately trigger Flash Fire, boosting the power of its flames!
"Congratulations. You fulfilled your life's goal—growing from a little knight who once resorted to any means necessary… into a true sun-knight!"
"Fire and sunlight light your road ahead, and sacred flame falls with rainbow light—perhaps this is Ho-Oh's blessing. They say Ho-Oh once came to Paldea, too."
Yes. There was a waterfall in the southwest of Paldea. Legend said Ho-Oh had appeared above it, shining brilliantly—at a location not far from South Province (Area Four).
Hikaru gently applauded Armarouge.
And at times like this, there was only one thing to say—
"Omedetou."
"Guren!" Armarouge performed a knightly salute to Hikaru.
The lord it served had long since been chosen—and would never change.
Now, evolving in battle, those merits and the people's celebratory emotions had become its strength.
Hikaru: "Great sun-knight, and inheritor of Sacred Fire—the Lord of Cinder."
"Become kindling for holy flame… burn into Sacred Ash."
"A knight's soul hides extraordinary power!"
But where there was joy, there was also sorrow.
From the Auspicious Armor being offered as a prize, a mournful emotion seeped out!
Such a promising seed—and it evolved independently! Unheard of!
In this new era, what "great merits" could a Pokémon like Charcadet even obtain?
Hikaru: "So the Auspicious Armor isn't needed. Though honestly, I never planned to use it in the first place."
"I just didn't expect the hammer to fuse into the armor too—becoming part of its 'merit' as well."
"In that case, you're missing a handy weapon and forging tool. How about I craft you a new weapon later?"
If he forged the "Instant" sword, would it be a little too broken?
Someone holding the Instant sword could parry any Pokémon attack, taking no damage. In that case, as long as you swung the sword in your hand, wouldn't you be virtually invincible?
In the special chapter, Archie wore the "Eternal" armor, held the "Instant" sword, brought along a Surskit, and with one man and one blade, tore through every single Pokédex holder!
Or maybe a king's sword in one hand and a king's shield in the other—perfect offense and defense?
But that was kind of like cosplaying Aegislash. If he swapped the sword for a lance and added a cloak, cosplaying a "scarlet knightmon" style would fit even better, right?
"Heh. If you carry more than two held items, you can't enter ranked battles."
Did the Pokémon world even have lances like that? Hikaru thought carefully.
Sirfetch'd's leek lance. Glastrier-rider Calyrex's icy spear. Escavalier's jousting lance. Beedrill's long spear. Cloyster's shell-spike spear—supposedly, ancient people used those spikes as weapons.
In that case, if he used a Cloyster spear as a weapon, he might even be able to mount an extra move like "Shell Weapon" onto it.
Armarouge stared at its armor again, then clenched its fists once more.
After evolving—since it was special-oriented—did it lack strength?
It didn't seem that way.
It stared at its fist… and suddenly, a powerful wave of force burst out!
[Under the influence of the Prism Star, Armarouge realized "Power Swap" and "Power Trick"!]
[Armarouge (special individual): its base Attack stat rose from 60 to 115, and its total base stats reached 580!]
"Base Attack 115?!"
Hikaru froze for a second and looked at Armarouge, which was testing its strength.
Wait—rainbow light, sacred flame, Ho-Oh, Entei's congratulations, blissful aura…
All the elements were there?
115—that was Entei's base Attack!
"So it became a mixed attacker Pokémon!"
No wonder it could suppress Tauros in raw power right from the start!
Yeah… base stat shifts—this was an essential part of appreciating how Pokémon changed across generations.
Across multiple generations, there had been similar adjustments.
Some Pokémon had poor distributions at first, but then benefited from later changes and received massive buffs.
Of course, where there were buffs, there were also nerfs—Aegislash got cut by 20 points, and the Treasures of Ruin, Darkrai, Zacian/Zamazenta, and others all took hits too.
"Speaking of which—just for example."
"Ceruledge has 125 Attack, Flareon has 130!"
"And Entei—a legendary Pokémon revived by Ho-Oh—only has 115."
"Is Ho-Oh's stat budgeting… a bit conservative?"
(End of Chapter)
[Get +30 Extra Chapters On — P@tr3on "Zaelum"]
[Every 300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter Drop]
[Thanks for Reading!]